October 29, 2012 11:13 PM CDTOctober 30, 2012 03:31 AM CDTCowlishaw: Once a championship team, Mavericks must now survive in order to sneak into playoffs

Cowlishaw: Once a championship team, Mavericks must now survive in order to sneak into playoffs

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Derick E. Hingle/US PRESSWIRE

2) The West has mediocrity by the boatload -- Think of Houston, New Orleans, Minnesota, Golden State, Sacramento, Portland and Phoenix. What comes to mind? Right, the ASPCA. These are potentially a bunch of mutts. If everything went perfectly for some of those teams, they are playoff contenders. But how many times in an NBA season do things go perfectly? Simple math tells us there are a lot of mediocre-to-bad teams in the West . That should spell some built-in wins for Dallas. Not all seven are going to roll over and scratch fleas. But for the one or two that become solid, there could be a Utah or Memphis waiting to take their place.

Local fans in desperate need of a break from the Cowboys and their same old story, same old results need look no further than their television sets late Tuesday night.

The NBA is back. The Mavericks are, too, but not quite like anything you have seen in the last 15 years.

If you thought last season represented culture shock with fans scanning the bench for signs of Tyson Chandler or J.J. Barea when the season began, get a load of the 2012-13 team that owner Mark Cuban has assembled.

Forget for a moment the fact there’s no Dirk Nowitzki for the first dozen games or so. That could do considerable damage in itself, but at least he will be coming back. But take Dirk’s absence and put it alongside no more Jason Kidd and no more Jason Terry, and this team becomes unrecognizable to the seasoned observer.

We’re no longer talking about why a team didn’t repeat as NBA champs. We’re talking about a 50-50 proposition to sneak into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.

That’s not negative talk from me. That’s the word from those in Las Vegas who offer gamblers a chance to bet on NBA teams’ win totals. The over-under for the Mavericks, at least at one enterprise, is 42.

But beyond that, consider what team president and general manager Donnie Nelson had to say. If you missed it while counting Cowboys’ turnovers over the weekend, Nelson stated flatly that the goal for this season is “make the playoffs.”

This from an organization that ran off 11 straight 50-win seasons from Nowitzki’s third year in the league through the championship 2010-11 season before playing a lockout-shortened schedule a year ago.

This from a franchise that won at least 55 games in seven of those 11 seasons and began the playoffs with a home-court edge (top four in the West) seven times during that stretch.

The embarrassment of last season’s first-round sweep by Oklahoma City is something close to a goal for this reassembled team.

Now, it’s possible that Nelson is understating his hopes and that this team will develop into a formidable foe faster than anticipated. For that to happen, however, former Clippers Elton Brand and Chris Kaman must be healthy and productive. For that to happen, Darren Collison has to prove he’s a ready-to-start point guard in a Western Conference that still includes the All-Star point guard brigade of Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Steve Nash and Tony Parker.

In other words, Collison has to show he can at least hang with the likes of Denver’s Ty Lawson, Memphis’ Mike Conley, Houston’s Jeremy Lin and the rest of that second tier.

Is rookie Jae Crowder, who lit up defenses during the preseason, ready for this league? Can O.J. Mayo harness his talent, which has been obvious since his days at USC, and develop into a worthy successor in Terry’s role as the second-best scoring option to Nowitzki?

Coach Rick Carlisle must work with an extraordinary number of moving parts as the regular season begins.

For now, competing with the Thunder and the Lakers atop the West — that’s being left to San Antonio and Denver, perhaps the Clippers. The Mavericks are trying to make sure they are one of the teams getting a crack at the Western Conference elite in the first round of the playoffs.

This is a team that’s trying to avoid a full-scale rebuilding. Cuban remembers what it was like to watch this franchise as a fan in the ’90s.

But youth and time are not on the Mavericks’ side. Only 16 months have passed since this team earned its one and only championship banner, and yet only Nowitzki and Shawn Marion remember what it was like to compete in that Miami Heat series. The Mavericks have changed drastically since that magical time.

Cuban contends they will be better served by adding Kaman, Brand, Collison and Mayo than they would have been by signing All-Star point guard Deron Williams. The folks in Las Vegas whose jobs depend on accurately assessing teams say this is basically a 42-40 team in the making.

The journey to see which side is more correct begins Tuesday against the Lakers. Enjoy the fact that, if nothing else, it’s going to be something we have not seen over and over.

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About Tim Cowlishaw

Tim Cowlishaw has been The Dallas Morning News' lead sports columnist since July 1998. Prior to that he covered the Cowboys for six seasons and the Stars for three as a beat reporter. He also covered the Rangers as a backup beat writer and was the San Jose Mercury News' beat writer on the San Francisco Giants in the late 1980s.

Tim has been appearing regularly on ESPN"s "Around the Horn" since the show made its debut in November 2002. He also worked with ESPN as part of the network's "NASCAR Now" coverage in 2007-08.

Favorite Dallas restaurants: Park, Nick and Sam's, Kenichi.

Worst sports prediction: His first in college ... that Earl Campbell had no shot at the Heisman Trophy.

Best sports memories: Seeing the Dallas Stars hoist the Stanley Cup long after midnight in Buffalo, watching the Dallas Cowboys win the Super Bowl and Texas win the national title in perfect Rose Bowl settings.